I recently reviewed The King of Fighters XIII, and I liked it. In fact, I liked it a lot; with it’s blend of amazing 2D animation and old-school, hardcore fighting mechanics, I felt that it was one of the best fighting games of this generation. Unfortunately, the netcode behind the game’s online play is so laggy that the game is pretty much unplayable online, and that single, major issue is perhaps the only thing holding KoF back from achieving the same level of popularity as Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. Atlus is aware of the issue, and addressed fans concerns:
In an email to import-gaming blog Siliconera, Atlus told fans that they were aware “that many of our fans are frustrated with their online experiences thus far,” and that they will “do everything within our influence to help developer SNK PLAYMORE test and continue to improve KOF XIII‘s network performance.” Atlus also went on to thank fans for their feedback, and encouraged fans and those within the KoF community to continue giving the company feedback regarding issues like lag and dropped connections.
Now, since Atlus is just the US distributor of the game, their hands are tied, as it’s up to the developers at SNK to fix the game’s netcode. But at the very least, its good to know that they’re aware of the problem and have talked to SNK about it, and hopefully this means that a patch will be coming soon. As I stated in my review, KoF absolutely deserves to be held in the same regard as Street Fighter, but it’ll be hard for it to develop a competitive community without stable online play.
